Good to Be Alive
by xxserafinxx
Summary: What if Ichigo and the gang unexpectedly die in a freak accident? What happens after death in the real world?


Hello Everyone~! :]

This is, my FIRST ever, and likely ONLY ever fanfic. Found out it's A LOT harder to actually write things out into a good story than just seeing things happening in your mind...

_**Setting:**_ The story takes place a year after the Hueco Mundo arc. (Does NOT include anything from the manga post HM…cuz I stopped reading after that ended. ^^)

**_Note:_** Because I started this story like… over 3 years ago, please don't flame if your complaints have to do with the story not being canonical. At this point, I don't really want to go through all my notes and have to change everything. And, just to let you know, updates _may_ be slow, but I have no intention of leaving the story unfinished.

Sooo, Please R&R! Thanks~! XP

_**Disclaimer:**_ I DO NOT own Bleach. (I can't even draw…! T^T) If I did, I wouldn't have even bothered writing this fic.

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The sun shined… No. The sun _blazed_ its unrelenting loving light down on the streets of Kyoto and on the miserably unfortunate high school students who happened to be walking in its line of vision (a.k.a. the-super-mega-hyper-sun-beam-blast). And among those students was one orange haired boy. His name: Kurosaki Ichigo.

Ichigo squinted his eyes up into the bright blue sky, sweat rolling down his face and neck, and let out a long, exasperated and frustrated sigh. It was a hot, summer day, and his homeroom class was on a school trip. _A fucking field trip_. Not that he even wanted to come, but he'd been forced into coming by a tag-teamed combo of Inoue and Keigo, who were as usual over-excited about every opportunity of possible fun. In this case, to make long-lasting pink and rosy colored memories of their last year in high school, linking hands with each other, running off into the sunset—

_'Woah there…'_ Ichigo jerked and stopped walking. His nose scrunched upwards at that imaginary scene. Well—he looked at his companions—at least he wasn't alone, since Chad and Ishida had been forced to go as well. But still.

'_I can't believe I let those two drag me into following along on this damn trip on such a fucking hot day when I could have just spent it at home eating ice cream on the couch in front of the TV...'_

He let out another sigh. Reflecting on his preferred laziness suddenly made him feel like an old geezer. He tuned in to the multiple conversations around him, and amused himself by watching Keigo make a fool out of himself just by _being_ himself, and Mizuiro immediately start to flatter and hit on older ladies passing by on the street.

'_Oh well…it _is _our graduation trip. It can't be _that_ bad… Kon's not here to bother me, and Rukia's back in Soul Society, but, whatever…'_

The school trip was a week-long trip to Kyoto, and they would be busing around to various sites while staying at different inns along the way. It seemed like an okay plan. They were currently walking back to their bus after having visited several famous temples, and their homeroom teacher was talking animatedly about god knows what, when he noticed a construction site nearby. He glanced up at the building being constructed and let out a low whistle.

"Damn. That's going to be one big-ass building…."

Inoue looked over, and with her eyes widening, took a deep breath. "WOW! Tatsuki-chan, Tatsuki-chan! Look at that! It's so huge!" She jumped up and down like a little girl causing her… gifts to bounce up and down with her.

Chizuru, and her intense fanatical obsession with Inoue, whipped around with a lewd maniacal expression on her face, pounced into the air, pummeled her face in between Inoue's breasts, triggering Tatsuki's dispose-of-all-those-dirty-bitches-and-bastards-who-dare-touch-Orihime protection mode. Keigo, with his strange and very much unnecessary, sixth sense for anything related to 'beautiful, sexy, and big-breasted women' gaped and drooled at the sight of Chizuru molesting Inoue—while also ignoring Tatsuki beating Chizuru—with sparkling glints in his eyes. Noticing his lecherous gaze, Chad silently and wordlessly stepped in and blocked Keigo's line of sight.

"AAAHHH! CHAD-KUNNN! How could you!" Chad simply looked ahead and maintained his awkward silence and attempt at protecting Inoue's dignity and saving her some embarrassment. Ishida pinched the bridge of his nose shaking his head at the mere stupidity of the _idiots_ surrounding him and moved on ahead with Ichigo, who merely snorted at Keigo's 'predicament'.

Unknown to the group of high school students, was the ongoing construction at the top of the structure. There were several cranes pulling up large steel beams to be used for the foundation and pillars for each floor of the building. Nearing the construction site, their teacher absentmindedly warned them to not go too near for extra safety as they neared their bus. As he stood in line to board the bus, Ichigo's gaze moved toward the bottom of the building and saw 3 young children playing with a rubber ball. A gentle smile found its way onto his face, the scene reminding him of Karin and Yuzu when they were little babies playing with each other in the same manner.

Ichigo was jerked out of the middle of his reminiscing, when he heard a loud clang and a snap and looked up. High up in the air one of the cranes had malfunctioned, and a bundle of long steel beams was dangerously swinging around, held up by only a single cord wrapped around it. In a flurry of panic, he whipped his head back down only to find the three children directly underneath the steel beams, still oblivious to the danger above them. Ichigo's blood ran cold when he saw what happened next.

The cord snapped, and steel beams crashed into the building, shattering glass and other metal pipes, plummeting down towards the children. Ichigo's class panicked and at once rushed away to avoid the crash. Tatsuki impulsively moved to shield Inoue, while Ishida reluctantly grabbed Keigo and Mizuiro by the scruff of their necks. Chad, his instincts to protect Ichigo kicking in, turned around and reached out to pull him back, when Ichigo struggled and cried out.

"There are kids over there!" He struggled out of Chad's grip and rushed towards the children.

"Ichigo!"

"Kurosaki-kun!"

"Kurosaki!"

Chad, Inoue, and Ishida followed after despite the protests of their teacher and classmates. The moment the 4 four reached the children and pushed them out of the way, a deafening crash and an enormous cloud of dust obscured everyone's sight, and everything, including time, seemed to have stopped.


End file.
